| Link(s): | APPG on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services DRAFT Call for Evidence Report – PUBLIC |
Context
An “All Party Parliamentary Group” (APPG) is an interest group that occupies a strategic and effective position within Parliament. It is cross-party, with a minimum number of parliamentarians from the Government and the official opposition, and cross-house, made up of both peers and MPs.
Key points to note and next actions
The APPG on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services is a platform for constructive dialogue. This dialogue enables all stakeholders to exchange insights, experience and ideas with a view to helping to solve shortcomings in the financial services space. This particular APPG published a Press Statement on 19th November 2024 about what it has described as a ‘hard-hitting’ report on its Call for Evidence about the FCA. The report has now been published.
The Call for Evidence came about because of widespread criticism of the regulator from a range of independent sources, including external reports on the poor handling of the London Capital & Finance, Connaught, Interest Rate Hedging product, and British Steel Pension Scheme scandals. The Report includes comments from various Parliamentarians.
The report is lengthy (358 pages) and detailed. There is likely to be significant industry press commentary on its content, but the section of the ‘Executive Summary’ on pages 10 and 11 of the report provide an insight into the damning nature of the report.
There appears to be an undertone in the report which suggests that the FCA needs to become some sort of Consumer Watchdog. One suggestion is that it sets up a specialist consumer-facing department for scam victims. It would be easy to say that this is just not what a financial services regulator is there for; it is perhaps there to try to make sure that what it regulates does the job right. It has a wider remit under FSMA, though, to make sure that those who are carrying out ‘regulated activity’ without authorisation are found and have appropriate action taken against them. As for a support function for victims of financial scams, perhaps this is not a role for a financial services regulator unless those scams were ‘fraud’ perpetrated by authorised firms.